Created on: 22 Jul 2024 | Last modified: 25 Jul 2024
Scotland’s college lecturers have voted in favour of industrial action on pay, as the long-running national dispute continues.
The statutory ballot was organised by the EIS and covers EIS Further Education Lecturers’ Association (EIS-FELA) members in colleges across Scotland. It was necessary because UK law requires industrial action mandates to be renewed every six months.
In the ballot, 71% of those voting supported Action Short of Strike (ASOS) in support of the campaign for a fair pay settlement, and almost 67% supported Strike Action.
The ballot has comfortably passed the repressive threshold set by the UK government’s anti-trade union law. The EIS-FELA Executive considered the results this afternoon and decided to renew the industrial action short of strike action element as soon as possible to continue the resulting boycott in order to leverage pay negotiations.
EIS General Secretary Andrea Bradley said, “College lecturers have delivered a clear mandate for the continuation of industrial action in support of a fair pay settlement, and this ballot result signifies the collective strength of Scotland’s college lecturers as they continue to fight for fair pay.”
“Lecturers have faced increasingly aggressive tactics from employers, including the vindictive threat to ‘deem wages’ (aka deeming) – by withholding of up to 100% of salary from lecturers engaged in a legal programme of action short of strike. This despicable tactic from many college managements has only served to inflame the current situation and increase college lecturers’ determination to ensure the provision of quality Further Education to students of all ages, and particularly to working-class communities.”
Ms Bradley continued, “With this fresh industrial action mandate now secured, the EIS will press ahead with issuing immediate notice of further ASOS action – including the continuation of the resulting boycott - and it will consider a new programme of strike action in the weeks and months ahead if an acceptable and fair pay offer is not forthcoming.”
"We continue to urge the Scottish Government to stand up for college lecturers and help bring this public sector dispute to a resolution, as it has done previously for NHS staff and other public sector workers.”